Whatever Happened To: Mewhiney found his way to Westborough

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Jul 12, 2014 at 10:00 PMJul 21, 2014 at 5:32 PM

By Rick SmithDaily News staff

Joe Mewhiney was a football coach, physical education teacher, athletic director and vice principal over his long 37-year tenure at Westborough High School. Not bad for a guy from New Jersey who didn't even know the town existed when he graduated from college.Mewhiney, 76, graduated from Butler High School in Butler, N.J., in 1956. He played football, basketball and baseball at Butler.Mewhiney was a quarterback and defensive back in high school. "My senior year we had a first-year coach, but we ended up going 8-1," he said. "I made a few all-county and area all-star teams. I scored a few touchdowns and threw for a few."Butler didn't have the same success during the winter months. "We weren't very good," said Mewhiney, who played guard and was a team captain.But once spring rolled around, Butler reverted back to its winning ways. "We won our conference three years in a row," said Mewhiney, the team's center fielder.Mewhiney went on to Springfield College where he played football. It was during the era of one-platoon football and a short-lived, strange rule."I was a quarterback and defensive back," said Mewhiney. "There was a rule then that if you got substituted for, you had to sit out the rest of the period. I wasn't very big, so I used to get taken out on defense. That rule really hurt me."Following graduation in 1960, Mewhiney went to St. Lawrence University for his master's. He was an assistant coach in football there for two years.The placement center at Springfield College then set up an interview for Mewhiney at Westborough. "Bud Fisher was the AD at the time and he was a Springfield man," he said. "He offered me the job right off the bat, but I told him I would have to talk it over with my wife before I accepted. We visited and my wife thought it would be a nice place to start."The Mewhineys rented an apartment on the main street of Westborough. The town was decidedly rural then."One day my wife put our infant son Glenn in the carriage right on the sidewalk," said Mewhiney. "She looked out the window to check on him and there was a cow standing there with his face in the carriage checking out Glenn."Mewhiney became the head football coach in 1962. "I was 23 or 24 years old at the time," he said. "We played Hudson in our first game and what a whipping they put on us. But I also remember beating Algonquin on Thanksgiving in 1978, the only game we won that year."He trained under Fisher and was the director of health and physical education and athletic director in 1965 when Fisher left. He also took on the duties of assistant principal when the man in that post was seriously injured in an accident."They told me it would temporary, but I was doing both jobs for two years when my wife put her foot down," said Mewhiney. "She called the administration and told them doing both was going to kill me."Mewhiney took on the duties of an assistant principle and remained in that capacity until his retirement in 1999.Mewhiney also worked countless hours on MIAA committees for Central Massachusetts high school football. The Central Mass National Football Foundation is now known as the Joseph R. Mewhiney Chapter in his honor.After his retirement, Mewhiney did some substitute teaching. He was also a sub contractor for National Grid, going into area elementary schools and talking about electricity.Unfortunately, Mewhiney lost his wife Kathy to cancer in 2006. The couple were the parents of three children: Leeanne (52), Glenn (51) and Gary (50). Joe Mewhiney has seven grandchildren and one great grandchild.Have an idea for Whatever Happened To…? Rick Smith can be reached at 508-626-4404 or rsmith@wickedlocal.com . Please include contact information for stories whenever possible.